Positive boundary change undone by latest review of village’s position, it is feared

Council boundary changes which will unify a Rotherham village currently split between two wards could be undone by new Parliamentary boundaries which, it is feared, will make the community more difficult to represent.

From 2020 changes to Rotherham Council mean the community of Thrybergh will be united into one council ward, rather than being split between the Valley and Silverwood councillors.

Instead, it will fall into the new Dalton and Thrybergh ward, with all villagers represented by the same councillors.

But independent political campaigner Michael Sylvester is now concerned that changes to Parliamentary constituencies will see the community split, with some residents in the Rotherham area and others in the newly named Wentworth and Hoyland area, which he believes will make it more difficult to represent the needs of the village.

“The crazy thing is we have a boundary change coming into place for the council elections that will unify the village in one ward, while the map for electing MPs follows the existing boundary along Poplar Avenue and Vale Road” said Mr Sylvester.

“Thrybergh gets very much over looked and struggles to get anything done in the village because it is on the periphery and a small part of two separate wards and constuencies and having it anything other than unified with one MP responsible for the area is unacceptable” he said.

Two different bodies, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England and the Boundary Commission for England were each responsible for one set of changes, with the parliamentary boundaries redrawn nationally in an attempt to balance population sizes represented by each MP.